The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Concludes

Sigh. So in this one both Sabine and Griffin go back to their homes without seeing each other. There is a villain involved in this one with Sabine. The reason I took a half star off it was due to the ending. Did they ever find each other? What did the last letter mean? Arggghhh! Luckily, I see there are more books in the series. As usual, the art was spectacular.

Failing to meet up in the previous book Griffin and Sabine chalk up their inability to meet face to face to belonging to separate dimensions. Which I suppose might seem romantic to some people. To me it sounded like "woo" justification for being completely incapable of arranging a simple rendevous, despite their ostensible desire for eachother.

In any case this allows Bantock to maintain his old epistolary format, once again restricting his characters' action to the page. To balance the inevitable inertia he introduces a new correspondant, one Frolatti. He is a villain! He threatens Sabine! He coerces Griffin! He is apparently dangerously obsessed with the would be lovers! Unfortunately he's clearly a plot device hastily wrapped up in show more what's meant to be some sort of uncanny existential threat. That or Griffin and Sabine are just bonkers as they confide their belief that he is sinister flocks of birds and the like.

Conveniently at the end of the book they pull some random bit of wishful mysticism out of their butts and are suddenly convinced that it is the one and only magical doorway that will connect their worlds! Just as they believe Frolatti is closing in on them of course.

I liked this story better when the mystery was in it's openness to interpretation, not mystical wankery. show less

I'm reviewing these two together because I read them totally out of order. leaving me with little idea of story quality. I'd read Griffin and Sabine years ago and loved it - the artwork, the interactivity of it, and the way it ended mysteriously. A couple of years ago I acquired these two books at a sale and put them away until I could get the missing three, and read them in order.

Except last night I was in the mood for books with pieces, so I grabbed them to read anyway.

Definitely not a series to read out of order. The Golden Mean was ok - I figured out enough from having read the first book to follow along fine, but Alexandria has new characters that were somehow involved in everything and I was more than a little clueless, although show more I was left with the feeling that Bantock was reaching for plot by the end.

Regardless, the art is still stunning. I love the postcards and whenever a 'real' letter appeared on the page, the thrill of opening it, extracting the letter and reading it, never got old.

I'm still going to search out the rest of the books; if I ever find them, I'll read the whole series again - in order - and see if the plot goes as off the rails as it looks to me now. show less

I liked the introduction of a 3rd person to the correspondence, it added sorely needed tension to the story. But I didn't like the ending. I guess we're supposed to guess what happened because of the picture on the last postcard, but a name change would have been nice to confirm it.

I've always like writing physical letters and sending/collecting postcards, kind of sad to see them go away, but instantaneous communication around the world is kinda nice too.

The series ends on a creepy set of circumstances. As far as I could tell, despite trying to meet up 'on middle ground', Sabine doesn't ever connect with Griffin. The plot is somewhat derailed by the introduction of the sinister Victor Frolatti.

The fabulous conclusion of the original trilogy of the correspondence of Griffin and Sabine. Except, it isn't an ending at all.
Aside from the beautiful visuals of all of Bantock's works, the Griffin and Sabine books fulfill a voyeuristic leaning- the desire to read someone else's mail. Each page is not merely a beautiful image with text, but envelopes you can open, notes you can pull out and unfold and read, complete with scratched out typos and margin doodles. The concept, that of a pair of lovers who have met in a mindspace that seems to have crossed dimensions, though they have never met, continues to be lovely and poignant.

The third part of the trilogy brings Sabine in danger from a stranger who has come to experiment on her and Griffin's link and the two conspire to escape together. Another very inventive and aesthetically interesting epistolary story with intriguing art to match. This is the "conclusion" to the Griffin and Sabine story, which turns out to be as elusive as the rest of the story. The art is darker and, in my opinion even better in this installment, but I still wish that the overall story were a little more substantial.